IN BRIEF: Lovely to look at and pleasant to hear, but there's not much there in this dopey love story.
JIM'S REVIEW: (MILDLY RECOMMENDED) Love and jazz is in the air in director/ writer Eugene Ashe's Sylvie's Story, a soap opera romance about...what else.? Two young people fall hopelessly in love. The setting is Harlem, during the late fifties and Mr. Ashe creates a vivid Douglas Sirk's Technicolor world of bouffant hair-dos and hourglass silhouettes. Despite all the fine trappings and Declan Quinn's lovely camerawork, the film never really gels. As the film progresses, its predictability level becomes gag-worthy.
Tessa Thompson plays Sylvie, an independently-minded attractive woman who meets-cite with her soulmate, Robert, a jazz saxophone musician. Of course, there are obstacles in their way: she: an previous engagement to wed; he: an up-and-rising gig in Paris. Will these lovers ever find happiness? Well, what do you think? Bring on the heartache.
The actors try valiantly to sell their story, but the problem is with a formulaic narrative that telegraphs the complications long before they arise. Much of the romantic entanglements of this ill-fated duo are caused by their poor decision-making, not bad timing as Mr. Ashe would have one believe. So the empathy level is nil. (My eyeballs had a real workout through this movie as these peepers kept rolling with each wrong turn.)
Composer Fabrice Lecomte's jazz score may be smooth and mellow, but poor Sylvie's life has so many melodramatic bumps on the road to love, foremost being a mawkish screenplay that might appease soap opera fans. Those who have a higher aesthetic standard may be singing the blues. In Sylvie's Love, music and love may conquer just about anything. But, try as it may, the movie can't overcome its truly cornball story, no matter how well you play it. (GRADE: C+)
JIM'S REVIEW: (MILDLY RECOMMENDED) Love and jazz is in the air in director/ writer Eugene Ashe's Sylvie's Story, a soap opera romance about...what else.? Two young people fall hopelessly in love. The setting is Harlem, during the late fifties and Mr. Ashe creates a vivid Douglas Sirk's Technicolor world of bouffant hair-dos and hourglass silhouettes. Despite all the fine trappings and Declan Quinn's lovely camerawork, the film never really gels. As the film progresses, its predictability level becomes gag-worthy.
Tessa Thompson plays Sylvie, an independently-minded attractive woman who meets-cite with her soulmate, Robert, a jazz saxophone musician. Of course, there are obstacles in their way: she: an previous engagement to wed; he: an up-and-rising gig in Paris. Will these lovers ever find happiness? Well, what do you think? Bring on the heartache.
The actors try valiantly to sell their story, but the problem is with a formulaic narrative that telegraphs the complications long before they arise. Much of the romantic entanglements of this ill-fated duo are caused by their poor decision-making, not bad timing as Mr. Ashe would have one believe. So the empathy level is nil. (My eyeballs had a real workout through this movie as these peepers kept rolling with each wrong turn.)
Composer Fabrice Lecomte's jazz score may be smooth and mellow, but poor Sylvie's life has so many melodramatic bumps on the road to love, foremost being a mawkish screenplay that might appease soap opera fans. Those who have a higher aesthetic standard may be singing the blues. In Sylvie's Love, music and love may conquer just about anything. But, try as it may, the movie can't overcome its truly cornball story, no matter how well you play it. (GRADE: C+)